You don't understand; but
the fact is that Tom Towers is everybody and everything at present."
And then, by no means for the first time, Mrs. Gresham began to
lecture her friend as to her vanity; in answer to which lecture Miss
Dunstable mysteriously hinted, that if she were only allowed her full
swing on this occasion,--if all the world would now indulge her, she
would-- She did not quite say what she would do, but the inference
drawn by Mrs. Gresham was this: that if the incense now offered on
the altar of Fashion were accepted, Miss Dunstable would at once
abandon the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, and all the
sinful lusts of the flesh.
"But the doctor will stay, my dear? I hope I may look on that as
fixed." Miss Dunstable, in making this demand on the doctor's time,
showed an energy quite equal to that with which she invoked the gods
that Tom Towers might not be absent. Now, to tell the truth, Dr.
Thorne had at first thought it very unreasonable that he should be
asked to remain up in London in order that he might be present at an
evening party, and had for a while pertinaciously refused; but when
he learned that three or four prime ministers were expected, and that
it was possible that even Tom Towers might be there in the flesh, his
philosophy also had become weak, and he had written to Lady Arabella
to say that his prolonged absence for two days further must be
endured, and that the mild tonics, morning and evening, might be
continued.
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